Schoos Give Girls Up For Adoption

Nation & world

July 11, 1993|By Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — The suburban Chicago couple who left their young daughters at home alone for nine days while they vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico, have given the girls up for adoption, two attorneys connected to the case confirmed Saturday.

The couple, David and Sharon Schoo, voluntarily ''surrendered their parental rights,'' said Carole Grahn-Hayes, the lawyer for the girls, Nicole, 10, and Diana, 5.

Grahn-Hayes said the girls were living in ''an adoptive home'' and suggested that they had been placed permanently with a family, but she declined to offer details of the girls' living arrangements.

''I've spoken with the girls,'' she said. ''They're in a fine home, and hopefully this is the end of the story.''

Herbert Hill, who was the chief defense attorney in the criminal proceedings against the Schoos in Kane County Circuit Court, said Saturday that he also had been ''notified that this was happening.'' He declined to say who had notified him.

The Schoos, who recently moved from the St. Charles area to nearby Geneva, could not be reached. Their attorney, Gerard Kepple, declined to comment.

The Kane County Chronicle on Saturday quoted unidentified court sources as saying the children were given up voluntarily at a hearing Tuesday. The sources said Judge Richard Larson, who presided over the hearing in Kane County Circuit Court, had issued a gag order forbidding the involved parties to discuss what happened.

The children have been in the department's custody since Dec. 21, when they ran to a neighbor's house after a smoke alarm accidentally went off in their home, more than a week after their parents had left.

The Schoos, David, 45, and Sharon, 36, were arrested Dec. 29 at O'Hare International Airport when they returned from Mexico.

They were placed on probation in April as part of a plea bargain to avert a trial. Authorities dropped all but a handful of the 64 criminal charges against the Schoos after each pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of child neglect, and guilty findings were entered against them for felony aggravated battery and possession of marijuana.